Sugar Secrets…& Love Read online

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  They sat and watched as more and more people entered the community centre: kids from the college, parents, the local newspaper photographer, even the town’s mayor had turned up to lend support. By the time she had been handed a microphone to say a few words about the local children’s hospice the evening was in aid of, the place was buzzing.

  When the mayor announced that the performance was about to begin and the gang began making their way to their seats at the front of the hall, Matt did a speedy calculation. He was desperate to sit next to Anna, just so he could be close to her, smell her hair, feel her reactions to the performance.

  He studied who was ahead of him. Right at the front of the gang were Joe and Sonja, so he figured they’d be the first to their seats. Then there were Billy and Anna, so maybe they’d file in next. Behind them were Zac and Ollie, Kerry and Matt, with Maya bringing up the rear.

  So if I nip down on the inside. I can split Anna up from Zac and bag her for myself, Matt thought, increasing his pace and beetling on ahead. Joe and Sonja began walking along the fourth row to their seats and, as the others filed in behind. Matt managed to position himself next to Anna as planned.

  Seeing him beside her, Anna stopped in her tracks.

  “I’m just going to the loo,” she said to no one in particular. Squeezing past him and making her way back along the row of seats, she sauntered out of the hall, leaving Matt to sit between Billy and Zac.

  How could she do that!

  Maya hung back from the others, lost in her own thoughts. She had left a ticket for Alex at the door and though she’d kept an eye out for him, so far he hadn’t shown. She hoped he was just a little late, but she wasn’t convinced.

  She wished she’d been able to tackle him about her fears before tonight, but she hadn’t had a chance to speak to him again since Billy had walked in on them on Wednesday. At the end of the class another student had asked Alex to help with some developing so he’d stayed behind, and since then she’d heard nothing.

  Determined not to hassle him, she’d avoided making contact.

  Now she wished she had.

  As the introductory music started and the curtain began to rise, the seat next to Maya stayed empty. Her heart sank to the floor.

  He’s not coming…

  “You realise she’ll be unbearable once she comes off-stage,” Sonja warned Zac cheerily during the interval. “It took weeks for her to come down off Cloud Nine after the panto. Mind you, she was good.”

  She smiled warmly at Zac who blinked back but said nothing. He had sat enthralled, waiting for Cat and Vikki’s bit which was on at the end of the first half. Cat was so brilliant, he felt a surge of pride watching her on-stage.

  “You didn’t see her play Cinderella, I suppose?” Sonja continued, trying to cajole him into some kind of conversation.

  Zac shook his head. “I didn’t know her then.”

  “She was brilliant. And she’d never acted before. At least, not on-stage!”

  “She’s really talented, anyone can see that. I’m, uh, going to get a drink,” he added, changing the subject. “D’you want one?”

  “Thanks, Zac. I’ll have an orange juice,” Sonja said. She watched as he made his way through the crowd of people to the makeshift bar where he drew himself up to his full height and motioned to one of the bar men. Within seconds he’d been served, way ahead of people who had been waiting far longer.

  Sonja smiled to herself. You’re a real dark horse, Zac, she thought. You seem so unassuming and quiet, but I bet you’re no doormat.

  “Are you OK?” Kerry asked Maya quietly. “About Alex not being here?”

  Maya shrugged. “Not really,” she said. “I wish I’d spoken to him yesterday. At least then perhaps I wouldn’t feel so miserable now.”

  “Maybe he really is helping someone out,” said Kerry, trying to make her friend feel better. “He doesn’t seem the sort who’d let people down.”

  “So he lets me down instead,” Maya sighed. “Anyway, I could tell he was making an excuse not to be here. Oh, well, I suppose now I know where I stand. Maybe I should take Cat’s advice and finish with him.” Maya tried to force a smile.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kerry, grabbing Maya’s hand and giving it a sympathetic squeeze. “I don’t know what to say.”

  A booming male voice announced that the second half was about to begin and the crowd of people filed back into the hall.

  Maya sat down - next to the empty seat - and stared forlornly at the black curtain which was swathed across the stage. She realised she hadn’t taken in a single word of the production so far, much less the whispered asides and giggles from her friends. Her only real emotion was the overwhelming sense of emptiness she felt inside.

  All at once, she turned to Kerry and whispered in a wavering voice, “I’m just nipping outside for a minute.”

  She looked quickly away so that Kerry couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes and leapt up from her seat. She stumbled up the centre aisle in the semi-darkness, focusing determinedly on one of the green exit signs at the back of the hall.

  Maya pushed open the door and squinted into the bright light on the other side. Hurriedly, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it, relieved to be out of the cloying warmth of the auditorium.

  She had the urge to walk out and go home, though she was well aware that wasn’t really an option. The others would be worried sick if she just disappeared.

  Instead, she went in search of the toilets, glad of the quiet moment that would give her a chance to pull herself together.

  But with every step she felt as if there was a heavy weight bearing down on her. Her eyes fixed firmly on the ground, she turned a corner and barged into someone coming the other way.

  Maya sprang back, about to apologise for not looking where she was going.

  She looked up towards the person she’d charged into and gasped.

  “Alex!”

  CHAPTER 8

  ALEX EXPLAINS

  “Maya!”

  Alex grabbed his girlfriend by the hands to steady her as she rebounded off his chest. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to be this late but you would not believe the nightmare journey I’ve had.”

  Maya stared into his face and felt the weight lift from her shoulders. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him close.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” she said simply.

  “I nearly didn’t,” he replied, returning her hugs with a kiss on the top of her head. “Not intentionally though. My car packed up on me three streets away. I’ve been sitting there waiting for the breakdown lot to come out for over an hour. I didn’t dare leave it to run here and tell you what had happened in case they turned up while I wasn’t there.”

  He pulled away and took her by the hands again. “Have I missed much?”

  “Only most of it,” she replied smiling.

  “Oops. Don’t tell Cat will you? She’d never forgive me.”

  “She won’t forgive me either, not when she realises I haven’t seen or heard a thing that’s been going on.”

  “It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “No - at least I don’t think so. I just haven’t been paying attention. I was worried that you weren’t coming, after what you said on the phone the other night. And when it started and you still hadn’t appeared, my mind got to thinking… well. I started thinking that maybe we weren’t, you know. OK.”

  Alex looked horrified. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t we be OK?”

  Maya’s worries suddenly seemed so insignificant and juvenile she wasn’t sure she had the guts to share them with him.

  “Come on,” he pressed. “Out with it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” She faltered for a moment then blurted out, “I guess I got a bit hung up on the idea that you simply didn’t want to come.” She looked sheepishly at him and, seeing the perplexed look on his face, explained further. “I thought that perh
aps you were just making excuses. Stupid, I know, but there you go.”

  “Oh, Maya, come here,” he said gently, drawing her close and wrapping his arms around her. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re here, and so long as I’m with you then I’m happy.”

  He lifted her chin with his hand and kissed her lightly on the lips.

  “Now, are we going in to see the rest of this show or not? If we grab one of the others at the end, we can get them to fill us in on what Cat was like, can’t we?”

  As the finale of singing and dancing drew to a close, Cat and Vikki stood side by side on-stage, holding each other’s hands, next to the rest of the actors involved in the performance. Bathed in brightness from an overhead spotlight, they bowed then retreated to the wings, their thrilled faces soaking up the audience’s appreciative clapping.

  From the fourth row, Zac stood and clapped louder and more enthusiastically than anyone else in the hall. He thought Cat was the best, she shone out when she was on-stage. He couldn’t wait to tell her how great she was.

  The rest of the gang thought she was pretty fab too. Matt whistled and stamped his feet, demanding an encore, and nearly starting his own mini-riot when the cast came back into the spotlight one more time.

  Even Sonja, who of all the gang often felt it her duty to give her cousin a hard time whenever possible, cheered and hollered as loudly as she could.

  “You’ve got to hand it to her,” she shouted to Matt above the din, “she’s a natural.”

  “I know. Mind you, she ought to be - she’s been doing it most of her life!”

  Alex turned to Maya and raised his eyebrows. “She looks pretty much at home up there.”

  “She is, she loves it,” Maya replied.

  The clapping finally died down and people began filing towards the exit doors. Like many others, the gang deposited themselves back in the reception area to wait for Cat to emerge and the post-production party to begin.

  “He got here then?”

  Kerry stood next to Maya in the queue for drinks and motioned towards Alex who was talking to Joe.

  Maya nodded, smiling warmly.

  “So you’re OK then?”

  “Yeah, great, thanks. His car broke down. It wasn’t like I’d thought after all.”

  “So there was nothing to worry about,” said Kerry peering intently at Maya’s face, noticing that she looked a hundred times happier and more relaxed now.

  “No there wasn’t. And look, thanks for listening to me whinging earlier. I must have sounded really morose.”

  “No worries. So long as you’re sorted, that’s all that matters. What did you think of the production?”

  Guilt swept across Maya’s features, “Actually,” she grinned, “I was hoping you’d be able to help me out there…”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the booming bass of someone’s sound system coming from a side room. Then a door burst open and Cat, Vikki and a gaggle of cast members piled through.

  Cat had changed out of her dowdy, single-mother garb and was done up in knee-high boots, stretchy lace minidress and a red feather boa slung around her neck. As usual, she stood out from everyone else.

  Zac leapt up from the corner seat he’d been tucked away in and raced over to his girlfriend. Cat’s smile for Zac became a beam as the waiting crowd burst into spontaneous applause.

  “Aw, isn’t he sweet?” Sonja whispered to Anna, motioning to Zac who had joined in the clapping and whose eyes hadn’t left Cat since her entrance.

  “He’s seems totally into her,” Anna replied, wondering not for the first time what the connection between Cat and Zac was.

  Cat swept over to her friends and began basking in their congratulations and hugs with the grace of a seasoned Oscar winner.

  “No, no, it’s not all me,” she cried, refusing to accept any praise solely for herself. “I couldn’t possibly have done it without Vikki and Doug and Pedro and the rest of the cast and crew. I know we were all doing our own pieces up there, but it was a team effort.”

  The ‘team’ began a group hug and kiss which seemed to go on forever as ‘Mwah’ after ‘Mwah’ was exchanged quicker than the time it takes to catch a cold. When they finally broke away the boys were covered in various shades of lipstick.

  “I’m so pleased you all liked my bit,” Cat managed, with a waver in her voice. “I worried that you might think it a little dowdy after my Cinderella.”

  “It was certainly different,” agreed Ollie. “But you were equally brilliant in both. It just shows you really can act.”

  “Oh, thank you. Ol!” Cat said, her bottom lip wobbling. “That’s such a lovely thing to say.”

  Cat turned to accept a plastic cup of drink thrust at her by one of the lads in the cast. Seeing that it was one of the hunks on the drama course, she batted her eyelids and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  “Thank you, daahling,” she said with theatrical flourish and was swiftly swept away by her college friends to another part of the room, where she continued to bask in the glory of the evening.

  Zac, who had hovered on the edge of the gang, shrank back into the shadows once more. He figured that his moment to tell Cat how wonderful she was would just have to come a bit later.

  The gang watched as their friend revelled in being the centre of attention. They’d seen it all before, of course, and enjoyed the spectacle of Cat lapping it all up.

  “Ooh, thank you, Ped,” she cooed as one of the boys offered her his lap to sit on. She perched her bottom on his leg and giggled. “Gosh, it’s ever so hard. Do you work out?” she asked innocently.

  At one point Kerry saw Zac slink up behind her, seemingly waiting - willing - her to notice him. She did, but instead of inviting him into the group or introducing him to her college friends, she just carried on chatting over-loudly to a couple of boys who were hanging on her every word. The was Cat in mega-flint mode.

  Zac took a couple of steps nearer to her, so that he was just an arm’s length away.

  “Cat…”

  He held out his hand and touched her on the shoulder, a broad smile on his face.

  “Later, sweetie…” Cat waved her hand in the air in front of him, then turned away to talk to someone else.

  Zac was taken aback. His face took on a slightly harder edge at the shock of his dismissal. “Cat,” he said, more urgently this time. “Can I talk to you…?”

  She either didn’t hear or she ignored him. Cat was by now talking in a very loud voice to Jeff Patterson, the college’s Head of English and Drama.

  “Don’t worry, Zac, she doesn’t mean it,” Kerry sympathised as Zac slunk back to his original position. “She’s just a bit hyper, as usual, you ought to muscle in there a bit more, you know, make her notice you.”

  Zac ignored the advice. Instead, he sat hunched in his corner seat, a look of angry hurt etched on his face.

  CHAPTER 9

  SECRETS AND LIES

  “Anyone know what’s up with Matt tonight?”

  Sonja stopped chewing at the rim of her plastic cup and dragged her eyes away from Matt who was being very loud in front of Billy, Alex and Ollie and waving his arms about a lot. She looked around her circle of friends sitting beside the community centre ‘bar’, then let her gaze settle on Matt once more. They all turned to look. Matt continued regaling the boys with some story or other, making big gestures with his arms and guffawing every five seconds. He was obviously enjoying himself and, judging by the smiles on his mates’ faces, they were too. Suddenly sensing that he was being watched, Matt turned to the girls and gave them a cheesy grin.

  “What?” he cried out, his hands and shoulders raised in a ‘what have I done?’ gesture.

  “Nothing,” Sonja shouted back and waved him away. “You carry on having a good time.”

  Still grinning, Matt shrugged and returned to telling his tale. He was in a cracking mood, had been all day. Spending so much time with Anna earlier had made him appreciate what he had with her - the potential for
a fulfilling, grown-up, proper relationship, like he’d never experienced before.

  And OK, so she had been a bit funny this evening, deliberately avoiding him while - they were out with their friends, but he could cope with that. So long as he believed that things were going well between them, nothing else mattered.

  “He’s been like that all night,” Sonja carried on. “I know he’s normally pretty in-your-face, but he’s getting worse. He’s so full of it I keep thinking he’s going to burst.” She giggled at the thought.

  “He does seem pretty pleased with himself at the moment.” added Joe.

  “Must be love…” Sonja smirked.

  “Well, there’s nothing like being in love to make you feel on top of the world,” said Kerry with a smile. Ollie had passed on Joe’s suspicions about Matt and Anna during a quiet moment earlier. She’d not really believed that there was anything in it, but then, stranger things had happened… “Maybe he has met someone.”

  Although Kerry’s remark had seemed flippant, Anna couldn’t help blushing redder than the tomato-coloured T-shirt she was wearing. She looked down to hide her face and shuffled uncomfortably in her seat.

  Joe watched her intently and became even more convinced that there was something going on between her and Matt. But he said nothing.

  “Seriously, guys,” Sonja carried on, “I think if there was a girlfriend we would have heard about it by now. He’s not exactly known for his discretion, is he? If there was someone he would have shown her off to us, I’m sure.”

  Sensing Anna’s unease, Joe decided to move the conversation on, even though he was dying to have his suspicions confirmed. He pulled up the sleeve of his jumper and studied his watch. “Hey, it’s getting late,” he piped up. “Shall I start rounding everyone up?”

  “Good idea.” Maya had been worrying about the time herself, wanting to get home without provoking any disapproval about the late hour from her strict parents.

  “Anyone seen Cat or Zac?” Joe continued, his eyes scanning the room.

  “Oh, look, Zac’s over there… and I can see the top of Cat’s head too.”